A Typhoon over Japan?

By Alexander Neill and Chiaki Akimoto

Japan's Ministry of Defence (JMOD) will select its new jet fighter, dubbed 'F-X' on 16 December. Japan has traditionally only bought American and the odds seem in favour of the F-35 Lightning II. However, for the first time, a European candidate, the Eurofighter Typhoon, has been a close runner in the competition and ostensibly offers everything Japan requires. The F/A 18 Super Hornet and F-15 Silent Eagle have been runners in the competition but do not match the JMOD requirement closely. The core requirements for the JMOD F-X selection committee have been clearly demarcated as performance, Japanese defence industrial participation and price.

The Japanese Air Self Defense Force (JASDF) has needed to replace its F-4 Phantom squadrons for quite some time and its F-2 fleet (a modified F-16 airframe manufactured in Japan) is outdated. The choice of aircraft will be a watershed for Japan's national security for two reasons: firstly as a litmus test for the health of the US-Japan alliance and secondly the future development of the Japanese defence aerospace industrial base. However, Japan's obsession with the prestige of procurement of fifth generation stealth technologies and a sense of loyalty to the US has confounded European hopes. Underlying both concerns is Japan's self-defence strategy in the light of a rapidly modernising Chinese military and uncertainty over the security of the Korean peninsula.

The European alternative

When BAE Systems began lobbying the Japanese establishment seven years ago, the company knew that confronting the overwhelming market dominance of the United States head-on would be counter-productive. For this reason, the Typhoon campaign was honed to demonstrate that BAE was committed for the long-term, and could offer benefits to which the US was unable to commit. Aware that Japanese defence procurement officials were not offering the Japanese tax payer value for money because of the astronomical mark-up prices for buying off-the-shelf from the US, BAE's tactic was to offer licensed production of Typhoon, with 95 per cent of assembly taking place in Japan.

A larger carrot BAE could offer was technology transfer, something which the US was unprepared to do over 'black box' security concerns. Japan, in its quest for the best possible aircraft was eyeing the F-22, but US concerns over Japan's inability to protect classified defence technologies prevented this. Despite a final push in June 2009 by the JMOD to seek US approval to buy the Lockheed Martin F-22, the Obama White House finally closed the door on the episode by halting the F-22 production line as the global recession began to bite.

At this point the JASDF turned its attention to the Lockheed Martin F-35 as the 'next best' aircraft. BAE's campaign has repeatedly pointed out that the JMOD had entered a cul-de-sac by making this decision, especially as the multi-role F-35 does not match the F-X requirement, namely the replacement of the ageing F-4 air interceptor. Moreover delays in the F-35 development programme and recent concerns over the integrity of its airframe may have pushed Japanese decision makers towards the Eurofighter, but not without last minute attempts to consider Boeing's F-18 or even upgraded versions of the F-15. If the JMOD were to select F-35 alone, it would face a gap in its air defence capability, possibly stretching to the end of this decade. Eurofighter, it has been claimed by some BAE officials, could be delivered on time by 2016.

Another major hurdle for BAE to tackle was the pervasive influence of the US throughout the Japanese defence and political establishment. The US hub-and-spokes alliance system had created a private hunting ground for the Pentagon, where Japanese defence industry, penned in and unable to compete for market territory on the international stage, had begun to atrophy. BAE's answer has been interoperability under NATO auspices - opening up the possibility of wider defence cooperation and softening US influence - and Typhoon's proven operational track record in theatres like the recent campaign in Libya.

New security environments

With the sixth largest military budget in the world, Japan maintains one of the region's most capable, albeit 'self defence' forces. China is fast catching up, as demonstrated by the roll-out of the prototype J-20 stealth fighter and its first aircraft carrier earlier this year. Japan's most recent White Paper on defence, the National Defense Programme Guidelines, published last year, re-examined the defence of Japanese sovereign territory in light of these growing tensions and advocated a flexible dynamic force capability.

After the 'Asian bubble' burst in the mid nineties, successive Japanese governments reduced the defense budget, which fell from ¥49.4 trillion in 2002 to ¥47.4 trillion in 2008. Japanese GDP will not grow fast enough over the next decade to fund new defence projects under the current alliance structure.

The Japan-US alliance lies at the core of Asia Pacific security, hosting approximately 38,000 US military personnel, across a range of Air Force, Navy and Marine bases. While the US continues to consider re-allocation of its garrisons in the Asia Pacific region, it will remain the pre-eminent military power in the Pacific into the mid-term. Japan's future national security outlook is still based on 'collective defence' with the US, especially as the region lacks a multilateral security architecture. This alliance provides a back-stop to visceral anxiety over North Korean provocation and growing anxiety over China's military advances.

The Alliance at times has been too close for comfort. The Japanese government in 2009 voiced the need to rebalance Japan's foreign policy towards a more equal relationship with the United States. The Pentagon has been frustrated regularly by paralysis within the Japanese defence bureaucracy, especially over the controversial Futenma base relocation in Okinawa. The issue brought down Prime Minister Hatoyama, and more recently the Japanese defence minister Ichikawa faced censure in Japan's Upper House after comments made by his deputy based on the island.

Overriding norms in Japanese defence policy

One of the important criteria for the JMOD in selecting its new fighter will be its self-imposed prohibition on defence exports if it is to maintain any sort of indigenous capacity. Japan's institutionalised allergic reaction to any form of weapons proliferation in the wake of militant imperialism in the 1930s gave rise to the 'Three Principles' forbidding arms exports by Japan.

Today, as unit prices continue to rise against the backdrop of slashed military budgets in the US and amongst its littoral allies in the Asia Pacific, increasing numbers of Japanese policy makers view the '3Ps' as redundant. An undercurrent in the F-X campaign has been whether Japanese defence industry can meet the challenges of the 21st century and if, like its European counterparts, it can adapt and change to meet the future.

Important Japanese indigenous defence projects have been scaled back in recent years, cementing dependency on the US. Simply put, Japan, like the UK, cannot fund defence procurement initiatives which are modelled and shaped by the cold war. Yet despite its influence, even some conservative US analysts agree that the US will not view collaborative defence industrial ventures with Europe as a challenge to the alliance. On the contrary, one could argue that the US could view this as an answer to the stagnation of Japanese defence industry. Some analysts suggest that a split-buy could be the answer, JMOD would procure a small number of Typhoons to help patch over the air cover gap until such time as F-35 is delivered. Typhoon campaign officials assert that the two aircraft would be complimentary in their distinct roles. The UK after all will be operating Typhoon and the F-35 in tandem.

Central to the BAE argument is interoperability with and amongst NATO allies as a foundation for a new comprehensive defence outlook both for the UK and Europe and for Japan. The argument here, in the absence of any multilateral security architecture other than that of the US, Japan could diversify its procurement in the interests of enhancing its relations in Europe and to ease the burden on the Japanese taxpayer. A split buy would be a sensible choice, but few Japanese defence planners are willing to stick their necks out to challenge the existing trans-Pacific arrangements.

Conclusion

Most Japanese analysts have never seriously entertained the notion of a European aircraft defending Japan's skies and some believe the JMOD's courting of Eurofighter has been a tactic to draw as many concessions from its US bedfellow as possible. Whatever the case, Eurofighter marketers can take credit for the most substantial European bid within the Japanese defence market ever and for substantially increasing the odds of success from negligible to moderate over the course of five years. The relative success of the bid has also encouraged BAE to consider other markets in Asia, even if the bid is not successful in Japan then it could still lead to other commercial ventures in the region.  Most importantly, if the JMODs choice on 16 December includes Typhoon, European defence for the first time since the end of the Cold War will return to Asia signifying the start of a new strategic engagement in the region.

The views expressed here are the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect those of RUSI.